


When it counts

by burkesl17



Series: When it counts [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, No YOI character experiences addiction in this, References to Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9214484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burkesl17/pseuds/burkesl17
Summary: Five times Yakov worried about Victor over the years, and one time he realised he didn't need to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is really an excuse to get out my mildly angsty Victor backstory head canons. The dub-con happens off screen and is somewhat ambiguous, one of the characters is 17 when it happens. More information is contained in the notes at the bottom of the story, if you would like to know more before before reading it. If you are concerned about it you can skip section 3, the information in there isn't necessary to enjoy the rest of the story.
> 
> Thank you very much to Mikimoo for a super helpful beta read and to everyone who reads this!
> 
> Update: 16 April, this work is now being made part of a series, there are no updates to the text.

**One: first meeting**

The rink Josef had asked to meet Yakov in was on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, it was a tatty and run down place, far from where all the newly rich oligarchs would go, and a long way from the beautiful Olympic rink used by the National team Yakov trained.

But it was where Josef said his star pupil would be and he’d dragged Yakov out there with promises he’d be seeing something really special. 

Yakov had heard Josef’s promises about young skaters before and few of them had amounted to anything. He was getting there early to try and catch the boy before he went into the one routine or move Josef had helped him get down, trying to ignore that the rest of their talent didn’t amount to very much.

But there had been something different in Josef’s voice this time as he promised that this one was special that he was already too good for Josef to coach, and really he had nothing to gain from introducing them.

Yakov spotted the boy, Victor, instantly. One end of the rink had been fenced off and in there, a boy with odd silver hair was elegantly skating figures.

He was good, Yakov realised as he lent on the barrier, very, very good for eight years old. And then the boy looked up at a woman who had come in to watch a bit further up from where Yakov stood.

“Mama! Look what I can do!” Victor’s whole face lit up with a beaming smile, but the woman only nodded back. The boy sped up and then moved into a series of spins and small jumps that made Yakov’s jaw drop.

He’d have been impressed if a ten year old had pulled all that off, let alone someone who was eight.

“Told you he was good.”

Yakov shook Josef’s hand and nodded, “You weren’t exaggerating.”

“He’s easily distracted, but not undisciplined. Already has a sense of artistry too and wants to inspire the audience, which you don’t often see in kids his age. But his parents were ballet dancers, he probably gets it from them.”

Yakov glanced down at the woman watching her son with a rather blank expression. She looked like a ballet dancer, petit and with excellent posture. Her dark hair meant she didn’t look much like her son though.

“Her name’s Irina. Money is tight apparently, the father died a few years ago.”

Yakov nodded, “He won’t have a problem getting funding if he continues to skate like that.”

“I’m sure that will be a relief.”

Josef leaned over the barrier, “Victor! Over here, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

He beckoned Irina over too, as Yakov watched Victor fly across the ice towards them with a relaxed, easy grace.

There were introductions and Yakov asked Victor to demonstrate a few forms and moves, trying not to show just how impressed he was.

“Is he really as good as Josef says he is?” Irina Nikiforov asked. Her voice and face were both extremely reserved, she wasn’t acting like most parents did at this stage. Yakov was used to people being everything from unrestrainedly selling their child’s talent, or immense pride, to concern about all the sacrifices they and their family would have to make.

This woman was barely showing any emotion until her son fell over on the ice, he’d been trying to spin with one arm in the air and had toppled over, unbalanced. 

“Victor?” She leant forward, knuckles suddenly white where she was clenching the barrier.

“Don’t worry, I'm fine!” He got up laughing and Yakov found it hard to believe they were related.

“He will receive the best schooling possible, but our students often get mixed academic results. They tend to be so focused on achieving results in figure skating, school work gets neglected.”

She shrugged, “He’s a bright boy, but he’s terrible at sitting still for more than five minutes at a time.”

“You understand too, that if he progresses in the sport he’ll start travelling away from Saint Petersburg in a few years.”

“I was dancer at the Bolshoi, Mr Feltsman, I understand the sacrifices that will have to be made.”

He felt at something of a loss until Victor flew back over to them and began to ask a torrent of questions about what jumps he’d be learning, who the other trainees would be, what music should he skate to?

Yakov answered as best he could, finally saying, “You realise you’ll have to work hard? You have talent, but that talent will be nothing without application.”

“Oh I will,” Victor replied, suddenly looking more serious and far more like his mother. “I want to win gold for Russia at the Winter Olympics, just like Alexei Urmanov did.”

“He practically wore out the tape watching it,” Irina said, her voice sounding almost soft.

Victor spun round suddenly and said, “But I’m going to be even better. His costume was boring.”

“Victor!”

“It was!’

Yakov shrugged, “Then you will have to work incredibly hard.”

“But you think I can do it?”

“Time will tell. Now go and cool down, I need to talk through a few more details with your mother.”

“Yes coach!”

Victor sped off again, waving at another boy who had just skated out onto the ice and shouting, “Alex, I’m going to skate for Russia! Oh you need to show me the jump you were doing last week, can you land it now?” As he went through the practicalities with Irina, he still struggled to understand how a woman so cold, could have such an exuberant son.

He had to go back to his own rink later that day, the metro was slow and he was late home.  
Lilia was later though and Yakov ended up just defrosting soup, feeling exhausted as he slowly stirred it round the saucepan and sipping vodka, until she came home.

Her lips brushed his cheek, but it felt like a habit.

They ate mostly in silence, Lilia reading the evening newspaper and Yakov noticed she was mostly just pushing the food around her bowl rather than eating it. Finally he managed, “Did you ever meet the Nikiforovs? I think they were dancers at the Bolshoi.”

She glanced up and asked, “Why?”

“Their son is going to be joining the National Programme.”

“He’s young for that, he can’t be older than seven?”

“Eight, yes he is, but Lilia it’s been a very long time since I saw someone with so much potential.”

“His parents were both very talented.” Her mouth twisted though, the way it did when she was thinking something unpleasant she didn’t want to say.

“What were they like?”

She dropped her spoon and the clatter of it on the china bowl was suddenly loud in the quiet room.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’ll be training the boy in a few years, and…” he couldn’t quite articulate what was wrong about the Nikiforovs, but something about their interactions felt off.

She frowned and sighed, “This is mostly just gossip, and you know I don’t approve of gossip.”

“I know. But…”

“Alright. Dmitry Nikiforov was the Bolshoi’s principle dancer for awhile, he was incredibly talented, one of the best I’ve seen. Irina was also very good, but not in the same league. She did dance the occasional solo though, she was very graceful. She stopped dancing once she became pregnant.

“A few years later, Dmitry fell on stage. A very bad fall, it destroyed one of his knees and damaged his back. Of course the ballet pulled in the very best surgeons, but…” She trailed off and sighed, “He was never able to dance again.”

“Poor man.”

“Hmm…well…This really is just gossip Yakov, I don’t know it for certain. Apparently he started to drink heavily, and didn’t stop taking painkillers. They moved from Moscow and Irina started to work again in the costume department of the ballet in Saint Petersburg. But…she often arrived at work with bruises.”

“Oh.”

“Of course she always said it was accident, but how many accidents can you have? He fell on the ice whilst drunk a few years ago and hit his head. They turned off the life support after a week I believe.”

Yakov thought of the quiet woman and her bright son, “She seems to care about the boy, but she’s very cold. He’s completely different to her, he’s got as much energy as he has talent.”

Lilia paused, and then said, “He sounds like Dmitry.”

It was hard to believe that the boy he’d seen encouraging his friend earlier that day could be very like a drunken arsehole who hit his wife, and Yakov said so. 

“I didn’t mean like that, but if they are similar in some ways it might be hard for her to see. Perhaps getting the boy away from her for awhile would not be a bad thing, particularly if he looks like Dmitry.”

“He’s odd looking, like his hair is already going grey.”

“Dmitry said he was completely grey by the time he was twelve. It’s probably for the best.” She wiped her mouth even though there hadn’t been anything there, even though she’d barely eaten. “I’m going to have a bath.”

“Alright. Lilia?”

But she was walking away from him, and the bathroom door closed. She was always walking away from him these days. 

He sighed and pulled the paper towards him, trying not to worry about the boy he’d met that day or the woman he could feel slipping through his fingers like melting snow.

**Two: a new costume**

“Yakov! Yakov, look my new costume has arrived, what do you think?”

Yakov turned in the corridor to see Victor running towards him, a glittering, white blur.

“Aren’t you supposed to be an angel, Vitya?” Natalia, one of the older skaters laughed, “I don’t think angels normally show that much skin!”

Victor beamed and spun on the spot, the costume was definitely a lot more see though than Yakov remembered signing off on.

“I’m an angel torn between whether or not fall, Natalia! I have to look like I want to sin as much as I want to stay in heaven. And besides my mother designed it, it can't be that bad.”

Yakov snapped, “It wouldn’t be that bad on someone a few years older than you.”

“I’m fourteen! And besides it’s far too expensive to get it redone now.” Victor rubbed one of the crystals on the mesh panels happily.

Annoyingly he was right about that. Yakov looked at him critically, with the grey snaking up his legs and the shoulder panels like feathers he would certainly make an impression.

Victor grinned again and Yakov only had a moment to brace for the impact of Victor hugging him hard.

“I knew you’d love it.” 

The crowd around them had got bigger and Victor stepped back. “You see with this costume I can be angelic, called to God.” Here he clasped his hands and looked up at the ceiling, hair falling back from his face. How he managed to look like a sight to make a saint weep in a corridor with strip lighting Yakov would never know. 

“Or I can look pulled towards…well…earthier things.” And he dropped his head and winked seductively at Gregory, another junior boy, who blushed a deep red. Yakov was trying to pretend he didn’t know the two were seeing each other, so he rolled his eyes and put his hand on Victor’s shoulder to pull him away from the crowd.

“You won’t look very angelic if you keep falling on the triple lutz. You were supposed to be at the rink ten minutes ago.”

“Can I practice in this? I need to get used to how it feels to move in it.”

Yakov shot him a look and bit back another sigh. “For twenty minutes. I don’t want to have to get it fixed the first time you wear it.”

Victor nodded, smiled softly and started to hum his programme’s music.

When they got to the rink Victor said quietly, “Do you think she’ll come to see me in Moscow?”

“Who?” Yakov asked vaguely, he saw Sara fall and shouted, “That’s because you didn’t listen to me talking about control earlier!”

“My mother.”

“Oh.” He looked down at Victor, suddenly taken aback at the fact he wouldn’t be looking down at him for much longer, he’d had a growth spurt that year. His face was loosing it’s earlier softness too, but he suddenly looked very young as he said, “I’ve been saving up. I think if she can pay for the train, I can cover her hotel room.”

“I’m…I’m sure she’ll try, Victor.” Yakov said, not sure at all in reality. Years since he’d first met her and he still didn’t understand Irina Nikiforov. How someone who cared so much for her son could be so terrible at showing it.

Victor’s eyes were very big, and he said in a determined way, “It’s my last year in juniors and I’m wearing her costume. I’m sure she’ll come.”

On the day of the event Victor did indeed skate like an angel being torn in two. He broke his own junior world record, the lights glittering off every crystal and his fans screaming. He’d have probably medalled if he’d been in the senior division, even without a quad. 

Yakov looked around and finally saw Irina, hovering in the shadows, watching her son in a big crowd of well-wishers. Her eyes never left him and her hands were clenched tight.

Victor saw her, beamed and ran over to hug her. She did hug him back, just for a moment and then drew away to touch his face for a second before stepping away. Victor got swallowed up in the crowd and when Yakov looked for Irina again she was gone.

He asked Victor later, if she was coming to celebrate with them but he just shook his head and said, “No, she doesn’t like parties.”

There was an awkward moment of silence and then Victor said bravely, “At least she came. She saw me win.”

“She’s going to see you win a lot more in the future, Vitya.”

Victor hugged him then and, for once, Yakov didn’t break the hug first. 

He was only partially right though, whilst Victor went on to win over and over again, Irina only very, very rarely saw it in person, and after awhile she stopped coming at all.

**Three: a rough encounter**

The banquet had been done for some time and Yakov was slightly drunk as he made his way back to his hotel room. He wasn’t at all unsteady on his feet, he was too Russian for that, but he also thought he was getting too old to be up this late.

At times like this he really missed Lilia.

Someone giggled in a room he walked past, followed by a deeper, throaty laugh. He sighed, at times he _really_ missed Lilia.

But that was part of the joy of tournaments when you were young of course, so many beautiful people, so much adrenaline. Victor, World Champion at seventeen, had already been through half the other male skaters as far as Yakov could tell, not that he wanted to know.

It didn’t seem to affect the boy’s skating in any case. But sometimes he did wonder, considering how beautifully he was able to skate to romantic pieces like this Swan Lake one, whether he really didn’t want anything deeper in his life. Victor always brushed off questions like that though and said he was too busy.

He fumbled for his key card and glanced up as unsteady footsteps came towards him and then stopped. He did a double take as he realised it was Victor, who looked completely horrified to see him and utterly wrecked.

Mascara had run down his face like he’d been crying and his lip was cut. His shirt was half undone, and ugly love bites were smudged across his collar bone and down his torso. As he hurriedly raised his arm to do up more of the buttons, Yakov saw a dark bruise was forming on his wrist. Like it had been tied up carelessly.

But it was his face that was the worst. He wasn’t amused, smiling and slightly sheepish like the other times Yakov had unfortunately caught him after a tryst, he looked shocked, upset and hurt.

“Victor?”

“I’m fine.” His voice cracked and Yakov took a step closer to him.

“You don’t look fine.”

“I am.” Victor took a breath, looked down at his feet and said, “I promise, I’ll be fine. I just want a bath and to...to go to sleep.”

“Who did this to you?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

The rage bubbling up inside Yakov surprised him and his fist clenched as he spat, “Victor, tell me who the fuck…”

“No!” Victor raised his head again and he looked angry as well as upset now. “Yakov, there’s nothing to tell. Nothing happened that I didn’t…” He took another couple of quick breaths and said, “I said yes. Now, please can I go to bed?”

There had been a handful of moments in Yakov’s life when he’d felt completely and utterly helpless, they were the ones that he came back to in the dark of the night when there was nothing to do but wait until dawn began to lick around the curtains.

His mother, her face aged from the pain, her hand squeezing his, breathing slowly in a hospital bed. Svetlana, one of the best skaters he’d ever had the privilege to coach, limping towards him and saying the doctors had confirmed she’d never skate competitively again, tears dropping down from her eyes like rain. Lilia saying it wasn’t enough anymore, picking up her bag and walking out of the door, the perfect grace of her neck, a wisp of dark hair, and the words he needed to say sticking in his throat.

(There’d be another moment, in years to come, on a bridge in Saint Petersburg, as Victor embraced him and murmured goodbye to all they’d worked on together. But he didn’t know that yet, that was still to come.) 

Here and now there was this moment to join all those regrets and all he could say as Victor found his key and opened his door was, “Do you need a doctor?”

Victor paused, and then shook his head and whispered no as he shut the door behind him.

A few minutes later Yakov heard the sound of a bath running and what might have been the muffled sobs of someone trying very hard not to cry.

The next morning Victor looked drawn and tired. The cut on his lip was very obvious against his pale skin, and he kept tugging down his cuffs; but he laughed when people teased him about what he got up to and winked casually and joked about a gentleman never kissing and telling.

And then Yakov saw Andrew Lockley, an older American skater, raise his cup of coffee and toast Victor quickly, smirk fixed in place. It only lasted a moment, but Victor dropped the remains off the toast he’d been crumbling onto his plate and stood up to walk out of the room.

Lockley grinned, and turned back to his coach. Yakov waited until they were leaving and then reached for Lockley’s arm.

“I want a word with you.”

“Oh, what about?”

Yakov pushed him out into the corridor, which was thankfully empty. He leaned forward and hissed at Lockley, “The Russian government knows exactly how many of its Olympic medals it owes to me, how many world champions I’ve coached and I known people in that Government who have respectable jobs now, but they don’t talk about the ones they used to have, do you understand me?”

Lockley nodded, his eyes as wide as Victor’s had been last night, and Yakov continued, “You stay away from Victor do you hear me?”

Lockley snatched his arm back and muttered, “I didn’t do anything he didn’t agree to, ask him if you don't believe me.”

“Did he know what he was agreeing too?”

Lockley didn’t reply, just rubbed his arm and scowled at the floor.

“Not just Victor. I hear that you’ve been sniffing around any of the younger skaters and I will find ways of making your life a living hell, you mediocre piece of shit.”

Yakov stalked off and once he was around the corner allowed himself one thin smile. He didn’t actually know anyone who had been in the KGB, or probably not anyway, but Lockley didn’t know that.

**Four: a haircut**

His first Olympics, his first Olympic gold and a new world record. Yakov watched as Victor stood in a circle of well wishers, everyone wanting to press his hand and congratulation him. They wanted to bask in the glow around him. Camera flashes were going off constantly and Yakov saw the new skater from Japan, who had placed very respectably for someone who was only fifteen, get rudely shoved out of the way and into the wall by Julio Bianchi, a brash Italian who had won bronze.

“Yakov Feltsman?”

He turned to see a man with Victor’s same pale colouring and grey hair.

“Nikolai Nikiforov?”

“That’s me.” 

The two shook hands and Nikolai beamed. “I can’t tell you how happy I was to see Victor win today. I hardly know him of course, I haven’t lived in Russia since he was three. But it’s quite something to see your nephew win an Olympic gold medal.”

Yakov nodded and pushed through the hoard of people towards Victor, who was dragging himself out of his crowd of admirers with many hand squeezes and hugs along the way.

It took them forever to catch him and get him almost alone. When they did and Yakov was in the slightly strange position of introducing them, Victor was rather sweet, raising his gold medal for Nikolai to feel the weight of and laughing at the complements.

Yakov was just about to back off to give them some privacy when Nikolai said, “Your father would be so proud of you.”

Victor froze and flushed slightly, mumbled something about not knowing about that, but Nikolai took a step closer and said, “No, Victor I promise you he would. I know you probably don’t remember him very much, but I can guarantee you he would be so proud. I’ll never forget the phone call I had from him when you were born.”

The smile had slid off Victor’s face and he glanced up at Yakov. 

“Oh Victor I’m sorry, the last thing I wanted to do was upset you. Look, here, I’ll show you this and we won’t mention it again.”

He produced a photo and held it out to Victor. There was a pause where Yakov wasn’t sure if Victor was going to take it, but he did and Yakov leaned over to look at it as well.

It was black and white, and showed a tall man in ballet shoes obviously mid performance, his arms outstretched. The man, who did undeniably look like Victor, was wearing a long wig, tied back from his face.

“It was from one of his first principle performances, he hated how that wig pulled his hair, but it was so long it reminded me of how you wear yours now.” 

Victor said haltingly, “We look very similar.”

“You know you really do, especially with that hair.”

Nikolai chatted on obliviously and Victor nodded, the light gone right out of his eyes.

They were both swept up then, into the chaotic aftermath of an Olympic gold, and by the time Yakov said goodnight to Victor he’d stopped worrying.

Almost.

Morning came round, and he wasn’t entirely sure why he went to see Victor, but he hadn’t slept well and a life time of early starts meant he wasn’t getting back to sleep now. Victor had been talking the other day about what he wanted to do with his programmes next year and now was as good a time as any. It was a completely sensible reason.

It was still very early and though Yakov passed a few athletes in the halls, most people were still in bed. He reached Victor’s room and knocked.

“Go away!”

Yakov stared at the door for a moment and then banged on it harder. “Victor, it’s me. Open up.”

There was a long silence and then Victor said miserably, “You can’t come in.”

“Have you got someone else in there?”

“No.”

“I could break it down.”

Victor replied in a sing song voice, “But that would be a scandal, Yakov. I don’t think you want that.”

Yakov rested his forehead against the door and tried to sound reasonable through gritted teeth. “Vitya, whatever it is, I have been a coach for over 30 years. I have seen it all. Whatever the problem is, I have seen worse.”

There was another long pause and then Victor sighed, “I’m not sure you have.” 

He sounded as though he was much closer to the door though and Yakov said, “I have. Trust me.”

Another pause and then Victor said, “Alright, but you have to come in and then close the door immediately.”

“Fine.”

The lock clicked and Yakov pushed the door open and quickly shut it behind him.

The room was dark and he could just make out Victor hunched up in the corner of the room, his arms crossed tightly around himself and the hood of his Russia sweatshirt pulled up.

“What’s wrong?” Yakov asked quietly.

Victor muttered something Yakov couldn’t catch.

“What?”

“My hair.”

“Did you just say your hair?”

“It’s…I…it’s hideous!”

Completely running out of patience, Yakov slammed the light on. He blinked in the sudden glare and then realised the room was covered in hanks of long silver hair.

Victor sighed miserably and pushed the hood back and Yakov couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Tufts of hair at different lengths stuck out from the top and sides of his head, it was still slightly longer at the back and cut in a jagged line. It was the worst hair cut Yakov had ever seen, an absolute mess.

“What did you do?”

Victor crumpled up like a puppet with its strings cut and slumped on the bed. 

“I cut it! I didn’t want to look like…to look like him.”

“Oh, Vitya.”

“I’m not him.”

“Of course you aren’t.” Yakov edged sightly closer and hesitantly put his hand on Victor’s shoulder. “I’m sure, it can be fixed somehow.”

Victor turned towards him with huge eyes, “How? I can’t go out into the Olympic Village, looking like this!”

“No one’s up yet. We’ll drive around Turin until we find a hair dresser that’s open.”

“People might recognise me.”

“Wear your coat over that jacket and keep the hood up, idiot.”

After a hurried trip to the car and several hours of driving around mostly deserted streets, Victor suddenly said, “There!” 

Yakov turned to see a man, with what he would only be able to describe as a creative haircut, throwing bags of rubbish out on the street.

Victor rolled down the window, leaned out and called in English, “Hi! Hi, are you open?”

The man looked up and said shortly, “Not for three hours.”

“Please,” Victor replied, “It’s an emergency, I’ll pay double.”

Yakov sighed as he pulled the car over and Victor stumbled out. The hairdresser narrowed his eyes and then suddenly said, “Are you Victor Nikiforov?”

Victor slowly raised his hand and pushed back his hood. Yakov saw the back of his head actually looked even worse than he did from the front and the hairdresser dropped his bag of rubbish and screeched, “Your hair! What happened to your hair!”

“I….I wanted a change. But hairdressing is harder than I thought it would be. Please.”

“Alright inside,” the hairdresser snapped and then pointed at Yakov. “You, go buy us coffees, there’s a coffee bar at the end of the road. I’ll have a double espresso.” And he herded Victor inside, fluttering around him in horror.

Yakov glared at the door and then gave up and stomped to the coffee bar, wondering if he’d ever had a student cause him this much bloody trouble.

Two hours later, Yakov was woken from a doze in the sunny window, by Victor shaking him. 

“Yakov, what do you think?”

Yakov blinked up at the man in front of him, and his first thought was how much older the hair cut made Victor look. Really like a man now, not a boy any more, and handsome rather than pretty. The androgynous costumes and soft beauty would have to go, and Yakov had a disconcerting thought that the person he knew before and had watched grow up, had somehow been cut away with the hair.

But then Victor smiled his infuriating, perfect smile and he couldn’t help but say, “It doesn’t look terrible.”

Victor nodded and straightened up to look in the mirror. “I think it really was time to make a change.”

Yakov settled the bill and as Victor tilted his head to the side and smiled at his own reflection he muttered, “If this makes the papers…”

“No Sir, on my word. I’ll keep this secret for him.”

The sun was still shining as they drove back to the Olympic Village. Yakov cleared his throat and said, “Hair means nothing really, Victor. You are not your father.”

He didn’t get a response and looked over. Victor had fallen asleep with his head on the window and Yakov just sighed and turned back to the road.

**five: pills**

“I’m not taking them.”

Yakov rolled his eyes and tried to count to ten, he got to five before he lost it and spat out, “Take the pills Victor.”

“I don’t take painkillers.”

Yakov flung the bottle back down onto Victor’s fancy glass table.

“You need to take them, you have a serious injury and you’re in pain.”

Victor pushed himself up onto his crutches and met Yakov’s eyes. 

“Will taking them get me back in time for Worlds?”

Yakov opened his mouth and then shut it again. Because the answer, of course, was no. Only time and extensive physio would get Victor back on the ice, and there was no way that was happening this season.

Sometimes he suspected the last time he’d won an argument with Victor was when he’d still been a child. 

Victor’s face was clenched with pain as he started shuffling towards the sink, and anger he was clearly trying to swallow down. He fumbled with a glass and Yakov sighed and pushed him onto a chair.

“I’ll get it.”

He poured Victor a glass of water and then hesitated. The last of the day’s sun was just starting to streak through Victor’s apartment, sliding across the chrome and lighting up the bookshelves at the other end of the room, and Victor wasn’t going to be training for awhile anyway. He opened one of the expensive bottles of vodka that Victor had, but barely ever drank.

Victor’s eye brows went up but he smiled as Yakov slid the short glass over to him and said dryly, “Your health.”

“I’ll drink to my health improving. And your health, Yakov.”

They knocked back the first shot and Yakov poured another.

“Is it about your father?”

Victor laughed shortly, “Is that your plan? Get me drunk and get me talking. Nice try, but it won’t work.”

“I have guessed some of what happened, Vitya.”

Victor sipped his drink and spun it between his palms. “It doesn’t matter now, it was a long time ago.” He looked towards the window and Yakov could see how dark the shadows were under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept properly in weeks.

“What if I got you a different prescription? Just something to take the edge off, but not addictive.”

“Yakov…” Victor slammed the glass back down. “No.”

“You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t know…have you seen Georgi trying to get a date with Sophia?”

“I try not to.”

Victor poured another couple of shots and said quietly. “Yakov?”

“What if I can’t skate again?”

Yakov looked back at him. “You’re only twenty, this is your first major injury and the doctors are confident. You’ll be skating again, Victor.”

“Sometimes I think…maybe that’s what went wrong with my father. What if he only really had ballet and when he lost that he just wasn’t anything else. So he filled up with anger and hate. I don’t want to be that.”

He slumped forward as he spoke and dropped his head on his arm.

Yakov stared at him rather hopelessly and sighed. “Have you eaten anything today?”

Victor just shook his head, hair falling over his face.

“Alright I’m going to make you something, and then you’re going to get some rest.”

There wasn’t any response from Victor so Yakov just awkwardly squeezed his shoulder and emptied a packet of pasta into a pan. He went through the motions of cooking as it got dark and rain began to hit the windows.

After he turned on a few of the ridiculous number of lights that Victor had around the place, Victor began to sketch out costume ideas, saying, “I think after the injury it would be a bit obvious to come back with a theme of rebirth or recovery, so I was thinking maybe something about summer? I can’t wear green, but pale blue, or maybe even yellow would work. And this year I really want to find my own composer, I don’t just want to use an existing piece of music.”

He chatted away, sounding slightly forced but more and more confident and Yakov gave up and served the food, letting him talk before helping him to the bathroom and bed.

As he left he put the painkillers in a kitchen cupboard, and the next time he was over he surreptitiously checked if they were still there. They were, but the bottle was still sealed and the bags under Victor’s eyes were darker than ever.

**Six: the time he didn’t have to worry, because he wasn’t the only one who did**

These days Yakov didn't really need much sleep and on days like this at the height of the Saint Petersburg summer when it barely got dark at all, he tended to be up even earlier than normal.

The newspaper shack next to the rink was just opening when he got there and the vendor waved a copy of the Komsomolskaya Pravda at him.

“I don’t buy that rag,” Yakov said, reaching for his normal newspaper.

“You’ll want to today,” The man said, handing it over.

Yakov took it and went cold with horror as he saw the front page.

 _‘Nikiforov abuse scandal! Is history repeating?’_

Below the screaming headline was a black and white picture of Victor’s parents from when they were young, both in full costume. Another picture showed Victor from the last time he’d won the Russian Nationals, smiling broad and blank into the middle distance. The final and largest one was of Victor and Yuri Plisetsky, walking out of the rink, a huge bruise on the side of the boy’s face.

It had happened last week. Yuri was in the middle of a growth spurt that had made him suddenly ungainly and he’d been struggling to make some of his jumps. Comments from everyone that he was lucky it was happening in the off season rather than during competition weren’t helping and when he’d skated right into the side of the rink and bruised his knee, Yakov had ordered him to finish for the day.

He’d nearly had a complete meltdown at that, but Victor had thrown his arm round him and said he could come home with him and and he’d cheer him up with stories of how badly he’d messed up as a teenager.

Katsuki had called him later that evening to say that Yuri had fallen asleep in exhaustion on their sofa and they’d bring him to the rink in the morning.

If he was being honest Yakov would say he’d actually been quite relieved. Yuri could be a lot to handle at times, and he and Lilia had taken an evening off to wander around the streets. The sun never dipped below the horizon at this time of year, and they’d sipped Champagne in a park, listening to a band play until midnight, and if things could never be the same, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be beautiful in a new way.

He’d stared at her in the soft light and thought she was still just as beautiful as the first time he’d seen her dance, and the first time he’d pulled down her hair in their first tiny apartment, dark waves filling his hands.

It had been horrible to be woken up three hours later by the phone, Victor calling in a panic from the hospital, with a ridiculous story about how Yuri had woken up in the night, and somehow tripped over Makkachin and then fallen onto a side table.

Nothing had actually been wrong with Yuri, apart from bruises and scrapes to his face and pride, and it hadn’t been anyone’s fault.

Yakov’s hands crumpled the paper as he read the article, which dredged up the old gossip about Victor’s family, the bruises Irina would be seen with at work, and Victor with at school. And now commenting on how this ‘accident’ had happened after Yuri had stayed with Victor and speculating on if this was abuse, why it might be happening? Was it jealousy at a younger rival, or even sabotage?

His hands were shaking as he shoved some roubles at the newspaper seller and raced to his office. When he got there he rang Victor who answered blearily, “Yakov, do you know what the time is?”

He couldn’t think what to say. All the moments he’d known what to say to Victor had been about skating, watch your free leg, take off a moment earlier, keep your steps lighter. In all their years together, he realised he’d never known exactly what to say when it really counted, how to reach him when it mattered most, and he didn’t now either.

“Yakov?”

“There’s been an article published…” He gave him the facts, very plainly, and Victor barely said a word after a first outraged, “What?”

He had enough presence of mind to bark at Victor to stay off the internet, but then he heard Katsuki say softly, “Too late.”

“Look Victor…Victor!”

“Yes?” His voice was completely flat. 

“Do what your publicist tells you today, if she says to stay away from the rink do that.”

“I need to work on my short programme today, the transition to the triple still isn’t working.”

“You can work on it tomorrow. This is bullshit and will die down, but do what Ana tells you today.”

“I’ll see you later, Yakov.” 

There was a moment of what sounded like the sheets rustling and Katsuki starting to speak before the phone cut out.

Yakov slammed it down on the desk and opened up his laptop. He had no time for social media personally, but it was useful for keeping track of what the skaters were doing.

The story was all over every channel he could see.

By the time Victor and Katsuki turned up two hours later, the street outside the rink was swarming with paparazzi. The camera men surged up around them and Yakov watched helplessly from the window as the two inched forward. Katsuki was nearly tripped up and Victor almost got hit on the head with the edge of a camera before they were inside, and it all began again when Yuri turned up a few minutes later, swearing at the paparazzi and pushing furiously past them, the bruise on his face still easily visible.

Victor failed almost every jump that morning. It happened to everyone some days but Yakov didn’t think there was anyone still at the rink apart from him who could remember it happening to Victor. 

He fell over and over again, his face the blank mask, that Yakov realised he’d been used to seeing once, but he hadn’t since Victor came back to skating with Katsuki.

Everyone was staring. Standing next to him, Yuri looked completely horrified, before he turned and stalked over to his bag. Katsuki looked like he was about to burst into tears before he suddenly muttered something in Japanese and started hurriedly tying on his skates and flew out onto the ice, calling, “Victor stop!”

Victor ignored him and Katsuki skated right into his path catching his shoulders and turning him into a spin.

Victor grabbed him back to try and steady himself but the two of them went down in a tangle on the ice.

“What are you doing?” Victor snapped, “I could have hurt you!”

“No you couldn’t have,” Katsuki yelled back, “But you are going to hurt yourself if you carry on like this today!”

“I need to get it right!”

“And you aren’t going to today.”

Katsuki got to his knees and carefully held Victor’s face between his hands. “They don't matter, Victor. None of the people who say these things or are stupid enough to think them. They don’t matter at all.”

“I don’t want people thinking I’m like him.”

“I know. And I know you aren’t.”

“Yuri, but I could…”

“No. You never could. You don’t have that in you.”

“I tried calling my mother earlier, and she didn’t answer.”

“Well, if she believes this she’s just as wrong as the rest of them. I know you, Victor, I know you, and I know you would never, ever do something like that.”

They embraced on the ice, rocking together slightly and Yakov realised in horror that at least one of them was crying. 

He looked away to see Yuri tapping furiously on his phone before shoving it back in his bag. He tied on his skates, and Katsuki looked up at him and nodded with a slightly damp smile before standing up and saying, “Come home with me, Victor. We’ll play with Makkachin and watch that cartoon you like and ignore the diet for once. Come home.”

Yuri skated out towards them and folded his arms. “I’m coming too. I just made myself look a completely imbecile on twitter saying what actually happened, so if you get a day off, I get one too.”

Victor got awkwardly to his feet, dashing away his tears, and with just the beginning of a smile. He darted over to Yuri to embrace him, Yuri squawked angrily, but then slowly raised his arms to tentatively hug Victor back. Katsuki smiled at them both and Victor pulled him into the hug, the three of them a tight little circle in the middle of the ice.

On their way out Yakov caught Katsuki and said quickly, “Look after him.”

Katsuki looked startled for a moment and then beamed and Yakov could really see what Victor saw in him.

“Always.”

And they left out of the side door, jumping into the waiting cab, and as Yakov watched them go he felt something in his heart relax a little. Lilia appeared beside him and said softly, “They’ll be alright.”

He took her hand, squeezing her fingers, and replied, "I know."

**Author's Note:**

> The dub-con is off-screen but Yakov encounters Victor afterwards, he's bruised and upset and Yakov initially assumes he has been raped, however Victor assures him he consented although in a conversation Yakov has later with the other person involved it's clear he probably wasn't entirely clear on what exactly what was going to happen. The implication is that Victor at least got out of his depth during the situation.


End file.
